DiFi for President in 2020! Say What??
The Democrats are already falling back into their totally non-self-reflective pattern of declaiming that they were betrayed and done in by sinister cultural forces and shenanigans. Not so. As the first parable I picked DiFi.
For those unaware, she is the senior senator from the MIC, Intelligence Community, and corporate powerhouses who is homeported in CA. Should you have the temerity to suggest that she vote in a particular manner on something before her, she will explain that she isn't there to carry out your wishes and ideas, but to make these decisions on your behalf from her exalted and vastly better informed position. She does however, when it does not unduly discomfort those agencies and entities which she considers to be her constituency, vote left on some social issues, like gay rights, etc.
She is returned to office time and again as the lesser of two evils. I have never met an enthusiastic DiFi voter. It is always "I guess I have to vote for DiFi again; damn I wish they'd run somebody against her whom I could vote for". She is emblematic of one type of establishment Democrat who is causing declining enthusiasm, votes and numbers across the country. She and her ilk are entrenched because $; fundraising excellence is a key criteria for support from the party leadership, including, but not limited to, the DNC, DCCC and DSCC. The more you gots the more you gets, so to speak.
She exemplifies but one problem. Both parties have largely become marketing machines, disinterested in ascertaining the wants and needs of their constituents, and, god forbid, the populace as a whole, but expert in selling themselves, their candidates, their agendas, ideologies and goals. They use incessant propaganda, every trick in "The Hidden Persuaders" and every trick of psychological manipulation discovered and developed since, tricky semantics, clever fallacies, scare tactics and othering and assorted other sophistry.
For the modern Democratic party, the DLC - New Democrats - Third Way Democrats, whether they be committed idealogues or simply go along with the program, this is quite an onerous process. They have to simultaneously push the neoliberal and neoconservative agenda and world-view while flashing their credentials as heirs to "the great liberal tradition" (Heh) of FDR, LBJ and the like; friends of labor, the poor, the downtrodden, minorities, truth, love, beauty, justice, kindness, and, of course, GOD & COUNTRY! and the FLAG! and FREEDOM! and WAR! and EXCEPTIONALISM! and REGIME CHANGE! and all that.
It isn't working all that well anymore. "Buy into into endless wars of choice because we are a little less racist and sexist than the other guys" just isn't selling as well as it used to. It is 2016, and we are into the 35th year of the Reagan Revolution. The most massive deregulation, arguably, was done by Democrats, "New Democrats", as was the across the board attack on government, a whole massive program to outsource, privatize and otherwise minimize government. Need I bring up "welfare reform" and "The Overpolicing and Mass Incarceration Act of (1994?)". Endlesds wars, interventions, Regime Change as an open slogan, even though it is pretty clearly a violation of international law to overthrow sitting foreign governments by force and/or subversion, not to mention formalized extra judicial assassinations?
The Democratic party, if it wishes to regain traction needs to return to being concerned for the citizenry and for civilization, for peace and justice. It needs to seriously try to represent and help the populace. That isn't a process of changing a few figureheads like DWS, but of the entire infrastructure and weltanschauung - they have to just forget the whole thing about "selling" shit - a good product will sell itself.
I wish I could say that I really expect this shock to start that process, but I've seen no movement in that direction.
Comments
They cannot really "return" to being what they never were.
The use of the word "return" was a bad choice, but I can't thinbk of a quick and easy edit.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Could replace "return to being" with just "be".
thanks for caring! n/s
Never forget that DIFI made her career off the murder...
of a gay man.
All you need to know.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
My first overtly political act
... was to go around San Francisco late one night painting big black Snidely Whiplash moustaches on every DiFi campaign billboard we could scramble up to, when she was running for the Board of Supes prior to the Milk/Moscone assassinations. We weren't caught, but we did make the 6:00 news on a couple of channels.
Ah, good times....
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I read a Project Censored article about Di Fi a long time ago
It was pretty shocking. I don't know if it still pops up on Google or not.
The Democratic Party is filled with Politicians who totter around on clay feet.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
It's still there.
I searched and found:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=project+censored%2C+diane+feinstein&t=osx&ia=web
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
OMFG - how stupid can this party be?
I swear to dog I'll vote for Stalin if they run DiFi
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I can't imagine that they'd run her, but, they did run HRC.
I can see it now "DiFI - It's Her Turn!". The mere fact that one can readily imagine that is symptomatic of what's wrong with the Democratic OParty and modern US Politics.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
WiDiFi ?
Plenty....
Apparently they are talking about Chelsea or Michele Obama too for 2020. Please, just shoot me now.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Chelsea's toast.
She's less appealing than her mom, and that money quote of hers is a noose around her neck.
A lot of people are worried about Michelle, but there are easier ways to make money than politics.
Michelle Obama? Never gonna happen. Too many figured out
her hubby was/is a useless corporate MIC tool.
What would he campaign slogan be? Vote for me and I'll eliminate all the weeds in your vegetable garden?
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Chelsea seems
like a hapless dim bulb carried along by the tide of her parents hubris.
Spare us.
What's with Chelsea's little girl look lately?
Long straight hair, no? makeup, and mu-mu dresses. She looks like the pictures of Alice in Wonderland, about twelve years old. Is it the latest fashion, like greasy hair dressing for men?
I think the long straight hair is mandatory.
Also, the three pounds of makeup to make you look like you are not wearing make up. Mumus, maybe post baby chub? The few photos,I have seen lately she has been wearing suits but they could be old.
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
We are safe from them running DiFi at least.
She's 83, and they certainly won't be running anyone older than Bernie!
That said, I can't wait until DiFi dies or retires. CA should not have a blue dog Senator.
Thanks EL
I found you right on essay reading the comments in the OT. I lived in SF during DiFi's reign as mayor. I never understood why so called liberal San Fransisco keeps electing both Difi and Nancy, she who took it off the table, Pelosi. Society 1% mavens. We moved to Oregon as SF became unaffordable and unbearable to live in. then again I did not know what I do now. The Democratic variety of the owners of the place have blatantly showed their hand and their arrogance is breath taking.
These are the people who deserve the blame for this debacle of an election. I remember when during the Bush regime she voted to appoint Gonzales the torturer fan, as AG. she said 'He is a such nice man"or some such thing. I can't believe I ever thought that the Democratic party was the antidote to the evil RW lunatic Bushies. 'I was so much older then I'm younger then that now'. Portland is fast becoming another yuppified gentrified SF so I guess that there really is no place to run no place to hide. Time to face the music and take these 1% assholes and there puppet pols down. No Justice, No Peace.
We keep talking about running away, but we both know it will
always follow close behind. Back in the late sixties some of my close friends and I used to discuss expatriation. One did, the rest decided to stay and try to fight to improve the place. The guy who went to Canada is far better off, but there is some satisfaction in knowing that I at least tried to turn this damn boat around.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
F**k no
Barbara Lee for President in 2020.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Unfortunately, that will never happen.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The Dems have really painted themselves into a corner.
I don't expect the Trump administration to be pleasant, but I also don't expect it to be Armageddon. What happens in four years if old man Trump has decent approval ratings and good enough health to run? Without the boogeyman pitch, the Dems will be lucky to pull 35%. The situation is very similar to Reagan against whom the same thing was tried by Carter who had nothing else to run on. Mondale was obliterated running against a guy too senile to get through a debate.
Maybe they could try Petraeus as the second coming of Winfield Scott.
If the establishment decides to stack the deck at the DNC again
and push a corporatist, militarist candidate like DiFi, stick a fork in em, they're done.
Beware the bullshit factories.
They are already done
and so over cooked the fork slid right out. The deck at the DNC is the establishment and there busy looking for new fake 'progressive' corrupt neoliberal applicants to stack with. The Democratic party is an ex party and should be declared poisonous and uneatable for any human to consume. After what we have witnessed since 2000 there is absolutely no way to resuscitate or fix this miserable excuse of a lesser evil. It's gone daddy gone.
There needs to be a good, progressive candidate to oppose Trump
A fighter who doesn't take crap. If there's another way to get such a candidate on the ballot and seen and heard, we better start figuring it out now.
Beware the bullshit factories.
gone daddy gone
[video:https://youtu.be/paEQc668kY4 width:480 height:360]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
and we have left the building.
Nothing to see here, folks. The party is over.
"Buscando la fiesta, para fumar marijuana." - Dusk to Dawn
stein - baraka
2020
Start with Ron Wyden who hasn't met a corporation he doesn't
Love. The Oregon delegation to DC is awash in career Dems and one sad sack Republican (Walden).
James McBride, jazz musician and author, said he knew within a half hour how superficial, white and conformist Portland is when he came to give a speech.
Other visitors have noted the same attributes as well. Not a nice place it used to be.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
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Ron is a incumbant Dem. weasel
who no one successfully challenges runs. I voted for some independent I never heard of for Oregon US Senator. The indie I voted for got 2.8. We moved to Portland in 1992. It was not conformist and had a lot of lefty/environmental activism going on. They did not call it Little Beirut for nothing. Portland's city government is all Democratic and corrupt as hell. Democratic Kitzhaber was so bent that he had to resign over a pay to play environment NGO scam.
We joined the Multnomah Democratic Party in 2000 and worked hard to get 'progressives' elected state, local and national from 2000 to 2006. They all turned out to be corporate puppets. Now that our current mayor and all our city government is demolishing Portland and moving in the New Democratic demographic it's going the way of SF.
It was an affordable, green and livable mixed community when we moved here now it's all so called progressive Democratic and full of freaking technocratic fake hipster yuppies who could care less about anything civic or liberal. They are literally driving out all of the artist's musicians and small business's and regular people who are not rich professionals that made this city a great place to live. Portland used to be proud of being weird. It's like the burbs ate it and called it progress.
Even Merkley who was a surprisingly good senator is starting to turn into a Democratic party weasel. His DAPL statements sound just like Hillary's or Obomber's. It's not just Portland and SF it's every city these global developers, investors and crooks decide is a 'hot market'.
Dianne Feinstein
Senator Feinstein was born on June 22, 1933, meaning that she is now 83 years old. In 2020 she will be 87. I kind of doubt she will be throwing her walker into the ring!
It's perfectly true, however, that DiFi is more or less the prototype of the modern day [Un]Democratic Party elected representative. Wealthy, elitist, haughty, superior, remote, openly contemptuous of her "inferiors", and actively working to steer ever more wealth and resources to the economic elite, whilst simultaneously doing her utmost to screw over the middle class, the working class and the poor at every opportunity.
One great point that Thomas Frank made in his recent book "Listen Liberal": The upper class that DiFi represents is not just the upper 1% - it also encompasses the so-called "professional class" as well. These are generally people with advanced degrees and high-paying jobs in fields like medicine, law, engineering, business management and the like. Most have comfortable six-figure incomes and are quite content with the Democratic Party in its current configuration.
When you consider all of the truly formidable forces arrayed on the side of keeping things exactly as they are, you can begin to appreciate just how hard it would be to reform the Democratic Party in a way that reconnected it with its New Deal roots. To anyone prepared to tackle that project - well, good luck. I personally just don't see it happening.
inactive account
so she'd be 95 at the end of her second term.
What are you? Ageist? No wait...sexist! That's it! Probably racist too. At least, hippie!
So, two days later, of course the Dem core doesn't get it. If they were capable of getting it we wouldn't be in this mess.
You are so funny... thank you.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Guilty on all counts
Plus, you forgot anti-semetic,which I will helpfully cop to as well.
I'm thinking they're going to have to weave a whole new basket to make room for someone as deplorable as me. Since DiFi happens to me my Senator, maybe I can get her to arrange it.
inactive account
It will be kind of like the reverse of this year's primaries
When they used the anti-semetic / atheist card against Bernie in the more religious states, hypocrites that they are.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Hey, if it was good enough for Strom Thurmond, it's good
enough for Difi!
And Pelosi would be 80. Jeez!
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
She'll be like 90.
The village idiots don't get it yet.
I checked some stuff out in the wapost. They still think the next nominee needs to be a woman, and they think warren is the leader of the progressives in congress. Hah!
Well, the Democrats have become the
Tea Party now. Remember when Repukes were going to try to "reform" their strategy? Welcome more minorities into the party? They didn't learn a fucking thing either, but then again, with the Rumper they didn't need to. And as I've read many places including here, Hillary was THE perfect foil to Trump, the one perfect candidate so bad she made him look acceptable.
They can't be reformed from within.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Great diary. One quibble.
Calling them "wars of choice" is a lot like calling the civil war a war over "states' rights". Sure, it's true insofar as it goes. But in the case of these wars, the choice is that of acquisition. So put more directly, we are "robbing other nations at gunpoint". That is our "choice".
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Agreed.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Tim Kaine, Michelle Obama, Corey Booker, someone
with a Hispanic surname (maybe whichever Castro brother has the fewest skeletons in his closet). Kirsten Gillibrand. Maybe even McCaskill or Murray. And, if they want to go white male from a purple state, they can go with someone like Bennet.
Thanks to the Clintons, Democrats have a solid bench of neoliberals. My guess is any number of them will be happy to fake populism to be elected.
DWS and Donna Brazile are probably out of the picture now
That's got to disappoint a few of the establishment types.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I don't think people
other then the minority of well off complacent brain washed Dems. that consider Hillary to socially liberal are going to fall for it again. After Obama's bait and switch, and this debacle that exposed the Clinton Machine these neoliberals have gone to far to keep their scam in place. Things are going to get worse for most humans and the planet and most people have become hip to their jive. Even the diehard 2008 Hillary fan, a woman, down the street had a hard time voting for Killary.
No yard sign's in my affluent city neighborhood for HRC or Trump. Lot's of BLM signs and Yes on 97 which is a ballot measure to tax corporations in OR. We currently have really low taxes on corporations thanks to our progressive crooked Dem. ex Gov. Kitzahaber who after winning in 2010? declared Oregon was open for business. His replacement Dem. Kate Brown is now in the process of finding a run around for a ballot measure the citizens passed to stop Nestle from taking over our water.
Gee, how about Michelle O? She's on a list from
Mother Jones (among the media outlets that turned to the dark side). They don't learn. They have a vested interest in not learning, and therein lies the rub. Look at the names they're already putting forward to challenge Trump in 2020:
Warren, Kaine, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Duckworth, Booker, O'Malley, Chris Murphy. Hickenlooper, and Michelle Obama--because we haven't had enough of spouses of failed presidents and of dynasty
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/democrats-defeat-trump-presi...
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Democrats must really like losing.
You know, after that big electoral wipeout on Tuesday, the Democrats are a third party now.
They should be a third party Crimson Buddha
but people seem unwilling to let go of the duopoly from hell. So if the Demoratt's are the third party and the Republicans are the 2nd party who the fuck is the first party? The independents who yo-yo between the two and sometimes dare to 'swing' between the R's and D's? Man they better get it together and get out of the Red and Blue binary mindset.
Politics are not static and history is littered with 'no exists' that somehow failed to pen humans into acquiescing or acceptance the intolerable status quo. I'm posting this on Monday as I'm being bombarded with the ludicrous 'a new broom sweeps clean' bs. from the so called Dem. progressives who are now going to take over the DNC and sweep the nation clean bottom up. Yeah right. Go Bernie you are such a great 11 dimensional player. Our Revolution my ass.
Chuck Schumer approves this message as does the fake progressive Democrat's who all kissed the Clinton's ring including Bernie. I'll believe this if the DOJ, FBI, the MIC and the Banksters' who own and run the place and the 6% approval congress frog marches all the criminal oligarchical machine Democrat's out the door and actually start obstructing the likes of the Clinton Foundation and all these powerful interests who rule the universe. Not going to happen and I'm done with them in whatever new formation of War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength they decide to go with.